Attitude is there for life
Kay Laurence July 2010
“A behaviour is only short lived
in the scheme of things,
but the attitude is there for life.”
I am often asked why my dogs have so much fun in training. They ooze sunshine and joy as soon as I select the clicker and take my seat. For them the situation represents many things of value:
- Time of undivided attention, for only them, and only me, no sharing me with the multitudes. Grooming is the same undivided attention, but I assure you it still takes more than one call to invite them in turn, whereas taking turns for clicker moments they are queuing.
- It’s food isn’t it? Is it just the food. I wonder? Mine all love to eat, but none of them are food crazy, just appreciatively take their earnings.
- They get to share learning, try out some puzzles, challenge themselves, maybe play with a new toy.
- They make me laugh, they get me to pay them for just being them. Most often the challenges are straight forward and a no-brainer.
It isn’t just the clicker, it is the whole package that brings them great pleasure.
Non-clicker folk ask if one can “click for attitude?” I am not really sure. To me the attitude evolves and is inseparable from the learning experience. I always look for the easiest route for that learner so that they never feel overwhelmed or over-faced. I like to think they finish with a real sense of achievement – even if that achievement seems to be just making me laugh.
I may begin the session with a brain warm up – on something easy that they can “show off”. Then I present the meat of the sandwich. But at any time they look a bit bothered we reverse a step. I would consider having the right attitude in the learner more important that the behaviour itself. The behaviour is only short lived in the scheme of things, but the attitude is there for life. A free piece of food to relieve any stress costs nothing, and unless repeated on every occasion they get stuck, is not going to fix any helplessness into the equation.
I like to view the lesson: me and the dog versus The Behaviour. I do not like to feel the behaviour ever comes between me and the dog, even though geographically we may seem to sit in that format with an object or shaping area in between us.
More often than not if it doesn’t go down the path I intend, it makes me laugh. I was teaching Dottie paw over face and ended up with the “huffiest” look on her face you could imagine, you’d think I had just called her a smelly Gorilla by the glare I got, from the corner of her eye, as she hung her head under her foot!
Dogs are great at picking up negative and positive vibes. If we become disappointed in their attempts they can pick it up quickly. Hey – if they have not succeeded the blame is entirely ours in setting a criteria that is beyond the moment. Our sense of “obvious” is clearly not the dog’s. We think we make the criteria too hard, but often we have stepped too far sideways, and not anticipated the normal thought pattern or common sense avenue for the dog. Dottie was quite upset that I would blow a raspberry at her, and if she could have got further away from me she would have. To her it was most definitely not funny. Speck just blinked, and blinked. Tessie went for the full head wrap with both arms, not just paws. So the same tactic with each dog, had a different outcome. The criteria wasn’t too “hard” just inappropriate.
There is a common technique of using an extinction burst to elicit a “good” attitude in a behaviour. You may want more urgency, or a faster response, or more intensity. The principle is to shape the behaviour, and before it goes on cue and is showing successful repetition withhold the click. The normal response, for my dogs anyway, is to repeat the behaviour (because they presume I must have blinked or looked away), but if there is still no click I may be lucky to get a few more attempts, but each one will have more and more hesitation until it fades completely. Even if I then can cue it, that behaviour will often not lose it’s association of stress, that punishment of attempts without information.
Mabel was the last dog we tried this with, and I haven’t tried it again since. To me it breaks the contract, they need and deserve information and feedback. Holding out for the dog to get frustrated does not strike me as a route I would choose to get a “better” behaviour. If I want a faster sit, then I will surround the behaviour with high energy both before and after the behaviour – in the cue, and in the reinforcer. In the case of the sit I will also look for games that building the muscle strength co-ordination and mobility in the movement.
I know that the extinction process, and intermittent reinforcement worked well (“well” being the definition of the observers, not the opinion of the pigeon or the rat) in laboratory conditions. But there are a few elements that I wonder were affecting the results more than was perceived.
I think the “them and us” emotion is part of the cage training situation. As mentioned before, the dog and me as “us” and the behaviour is “them”. I never see my dog as the object of testing but my partner in trying to achieve a solution.
Often the situation of the car not starting is used to illustrate the extinction burst phenomena. This is based on the success of this behaviour having happened many, many times in the past, and when it doesn’t there will be several increasingly frenetic attempts to turn the key (regard that as key turning with “attitude”). Ah …. but you see, my reliable Renault would leave me in stunned shocked, if after 5 years of always starting it suddenly didn’t, I would only attempt it once more and then call the AA. I would not keep trying.
But if you have the type of car that only started after an irregular amount of attempts, then you would expect to try several times. It depends what the reinforcement history was – 100% instant success, or variable quantity of attempts before success.
My dogs by design have a 98% history of reinforcement, which reflects very quickly if faced with lack of success, the behaviour begins to fades. If they have learned to make many attempts when learning something new, perhaps a 35% success rate, then when faced with a lack of reinforcement they would pursue success for longer. This is regarded as making the behaviour more durable, less likely to extinction.
But. I do not see a situation in their current training of the future when they would not continue with 98% success. This does not mean I live life with a bucket of food permanently attached to my body, but I use many, many different variations of reinforcement as a response to successful behaviours. Sometimes for the workaholic collies, this may be another behaviour, for the attention seeking Gordons, some more attention.
I have not witnessed this approach of building success on success as an less reliable than alternative routes. If I was searching for explosive devices, then a successful indication from the dog would always be followed by reinforcement, I would not be interested in trying “extinction bursts” to make the behaviour more reliable. If my dog’s nose is indicating “dodgy stuff here” then I would listen to it.
I value their attitude more than their success rate since the dogs with the right attitude would always try their 100% best, and if my time has been properly invested in their opportunities to practise then the result would be perfect and reliable behaviours.
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